This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/208,364, filed May 31, 2000 and incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates generally to a system and method for conducting surveys, and more particularly to an at least partially automated and efficient method and system for collecting, processing, and displaying customer satisfaction survey information that enables a product or service provider to evaluate the quality of goods and/or services received based on ratings and reports obtained by performing surveys of customers, employees, and/or staff.
Conventional approaches for surveying consumers of products and services, such as health care services, generally use standard survey forms or questionnaires, whereby an agent calls or visits a survey participant and performs the survey. Alternatively, the participant may be mailed a survey form for completion.
However, these methods of performing surveys are inefficient and often inaccurate. Individual agents are typically used to perform the survey, and to tally and process the results into an assessment as to how well an organization is performing. Although computers are likely to be used to analyze the survey data, human agents are still typically used to enter the data into a computer or to perform the actual survey questioning. Unfortunately, human agents are expensive to hire, increasing survey costs, and humans often make mistakes, leading to survey inaccuracies.
One possible solution involves using computer-operated surveys where the participant uses the touch-tone feature of a telephone to enter replies to questions. However, such a system seems impersonal to the participant, often leads to mistakes if the participant forgets the key/answer mapping, and is limited to the use of touch-tone telephones. Such a solution also does not provide an adequate means to get actual participant verbal responses to questions. Actual recorded verbal responses have the advantage of capturing the participant's subjective tone and emotional state, as well as capturing the participant's objective opinion.
It would be advantageous to automate the survey process to reduce the number of human beings utilized in the survey process, to increase the accuracy, reduce the costs, improve the efficiencies, and overcome the shortcomings of current techniques identified above. Modern computer and networking technology provides potential solutions to these problems. Advances in automated voice recognition, database design, computer processing, and computer networking all provide means to improve the process of performing a survey.
In addition, because all survey participants tend to be asked the same pre-determined list of questions, little insight into the particular reasons behind the answers are typically available. Conventional means of solving this problem may involve having a participant state a reason for their answer. However, the consumer of a survey assessment may only be interested in detailed reasons behind an answer in particular situations, such as when a consumer is very dissatisfied with a service or product, while the same consumer may not care why a survey participant was satisfied with a service or product. Also, processing these stated “reasons” using standard techniques can be difficult, time consuming, and costly. Accordingly, an adaptable survey questioning procedure would be useful, one that determines the depth of questioning on certain topics depending on the answers given to questions on that topic, and that utilizes computer technology to process verbal replies.
Conventional written surveys attempt to solve this process by, for example, telling a participant to “skip section X if you answered ‘no’ to question Y” or to “complete section Q only if you answered ‘poor’ to question T”. Telephone or personal surveys often require the survey agent to follow similar instructions. This can be confusing and frustrating to participants and agents alike, often leading to errors or incomplete surveys. More sophisticated, automated survey techniques that depend on neither the participant nor agent's understanding of the survey structure would be advantageous.
In summary, better utilization of modern computers, software, and communication technologies while reducing reliance on human agents performing survey questioning would be beneficial to the consumers of survey information and the survey participants, as well as the agents performing the surveys.